productivity, in economics, the ratio of what is produced to what is required to produce it. Usually this ratio is in the form of an average, expressing the total output of some category of goods divided by the total input of, say, labour or raw materials.

In principle, any input can be used in the denominator of the productivity ratio. Thus, one can speak of the productivity of land, labour, capital, or subcategories of any of these factors of production. One may also speak of the productivity of a certain type of fuel or raw material or may combine inputs ... (100 of 5,989 words)